HOW MAY RELIGIOUS CULTURE BE GIVEN TO THE STATE UNIVERSITY
COMMUNITY?
By Rev. Thomas Cary Johnson, D.D., LL.D., of the Union Theological Seminary, Richmond,
Va.
The subject as assigned—"Religious Culture in State Universities by
Denominational Agencies" suggests several theses which hardly require
discussion in this body, to wit:
First: The university community should have religious culture.
There may be small groups of people here and there which would
dispute this thesis; but it may be asserted safely that the vast majority of
thoughtful people the world over would maintain that the university community,
as certainly as it is included within the grade of rational and
responsible agents and as certainly as it is to exercise an indefinitely large
influence for weal or woe on the rest of the State, should have religious culture.
It may be even more boldly assumed, also, that this body of "clerical
alumni" would consider it worse than a waste of time—an impertinence,
indeed—to set about proving on this occasion, the truth of a thesis which
our very calling proclaims that we hold—a thesis which we can deny only on
pain of professing ourselves to be hypocrites.
Second: The State University in these United States of America cannot
of itself give an adequate religious culture.
Men are found to say: "If theism be true and discovered, and if its
teaching be necessary to the stability of the State, the State may teach it."
Granted for the sake of argument; yet we all say that bare theism—the
doctrine of a personal God, the Creator and Moral Governor of the Universe
—is inadequate religious culture; and for adequate religious teaching the
State has neither warrant nor fitness—no warrant, its constitution gives
none; no fitness through possession of an adequate religious creed, or of a
holy character. So far is it from possessing an adequate creed which it may
teach, its sovereign people hold some of them one thing and some of them
the contradictory thereto. Nor has the State the holiness of character to be
desired in a teacher of religion. The State as represented by its government,
and as represented by the Board of Regents of the University, may be
pious in one era and impious in the next. The State has no fitness, as no
commission, to teach any other religion than bare theism, if to teach that;
and its attempting to do so would be an impious assumption.
Good Americans and good Virginians, it is taken for granted that we all
agree that the State must not attempt to give an adequate religious culture,
and that the State University—an organ of the State—should not attempt it.
Third: That religious denomination which possesses in its creed the
largest amount of cardinal religious truth, is, other things being equal, under
the weightiest obligation to attempt to give religious culture to the university
community. The knowledge of religious truth—the truth about God,
about man's relations to Him and man's duties to Him and to His creatures
—the grasp of the eternal realities—is a possession, a leverage for uplift,
which any true ethics urges him, who has it, to give to his fellows. That
religious denomination, therefore, which claims the largest possession of
religious truth, virtually avows, in the claim, its obligation, circumstances
permitting, to impart that truth to all men; and, in particular, to impart
it, as speedily as possible, to any body of men destined to be as influential
on other men as the university community.
In the present point it is not ours to determine which of the denominations
has most of religious truth and largest ability to impart it. We are
concerned with the principle that largest possession of truth and of power
to put others in possession of it carries the weightiest responsibility to do the
service.
Fourth: Other religious denominations are under obligation to take a
hand in the religious culture of the university community proportioned to
the truth of their teachings and their ability, through holiness of life and
favoring Providence, to put their teachings across. This will hardly be
denied. It cannot be denied consistently by any Christian denomination,
for Christ commissioned his disciples to evangelize every creature and to
disciple all nations.
If the foregoing propositions be accepted as true, we may properly
confine ourselves to suggesting and discussing answers to the question:
How may religious culture be given to State university communities by
Denominational Agencies?
It is conceded that this is not the exact form of the subject set us; but
it is, at the same time, believed that an effectual plan by which the Denominations
can give to the university community religious culture is what is
sought after.
To the present speaker the following seems a practicable plan: Let a
denomination conscious of the possession of priceless religious truth and
conscious of ability to do such service, under the good hand of God, to the
university community, acquire a convenient plot of ground, erect on it a
building containing an auditorium, lecture-rooms, classrooms, reading-rooms,
a room for a specially selected library of the standard religious
literature of the ages—a building for a church of the institutional type in
short; let it endow this Church with such liberality that for it can be commanded
a man of singular abilities as pastor, preacher and lecturer and
teacher. Let him have such helpers as necessity shall dictate. Let him, in
addition to preaching on the Lord's day, and looking after (as a faithful
pastor) his whole contingent in the university community, plan and conduct
a course of study in religion which shall be as effective in disciplining or
informing, or in both disciplining and informing, the mind, as any course
of the same number of hours in the university curricula so that, if the
university pleases, the successful completion of this course may be rewarded
by a credit equalling that received for any elective university course of no
greater number of hours.
Such a plan, if put into operation by any given denomination, would
insure the pastoral oversight of the student and faculty members of the
university community of that denomination; would secure preaching of the
type of doctrine peculiar to the denomination. Those two functions, if ably
performed, would affect the life of the whole community to a degree. And
the special course, taught with vigor, ability and learning, would produce a
more intense effect on the class.
Suppose four denominations had such material plants established and
ably manned, the university community would be affected in no small
degree.
The university would be made a place of larger privilege, its cultural
opportunities would be enlarged as by the establishment of a new chair; and
the character of the whole body morally invigorated and ennobled.
It should not be difficult to secure plants and endowments. There must
be men, in each of the great denominations who would at once see the limitless
importance of bringing such influence to bear on the university community,
and, through the outgoing students, upon the world—men ready to
establish just such foundations as we have described.
Look them out, gentlemen; invite them to make religious culture by the
denomination they love best and respect most a certainty in this city set on a
hill, that the pathway of our future leaders may be lighted not only to true
greatness in this life but to God and blessed communion with Him in the life
beyond.
